The Active Phytoremediation Wall System is a modular system of pods, housing hydroponic plants. Its main purpose is to encourage airflow and contribute to the quality of life through its air cleaning capacities. The project is a result of a collaborative research between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
It is a bio-mechanical hybrid system that produces ‘fresh air’ from within buildings, thereby reducing the energy consumption. Because the plants’ roots are exposed, instead of being buried in soil, the plants’ air-cleaning capacity increases by 200 to 300 percent. The pods themselves are made from vacuum-formed plastic, and the form allows the maximum amount of air to reach the root rhizomes while using the minimum amount of material. It also creates a beautiful base for the plants. The wall system can be installed in large commercial interiors, but works equally well in small settings—a four-module system in an apartment would have the impact of 800 to

Open Energy aims to develop a platform to explore new systems of visualization energy use and to optimize it accordingly, both in domestic and industrial environments.
The system is built along two dimensions: first one, Energy Monitoring Device, which investigates open hardware devices in which monitoring power consumption, and a second dimension, Open Energy Visualization (Data Visualization / Augmented Reality App), which explores new ways of real-time visualization power consumption in domestic environments.
These systems will allow us to amplify our knowledge about the dynamic behavior of energy anywhere.
Open Energy is a prototype of energy infrastructure completely Open Source.